Do you think people should be paid for their work?

[msmarmitelover]

This site has been going in one form or another for two years. Since the beginning I've not only promoted my supper club but the entire 'sector'. I believe supper clubs are a new movement in food: promoting home cooking, community, cooking from scratch and highlighting women's cookery skills in particular. So I've sought to build a community.

This site costs money and it's maintenance is time consuming. I am helped in this by Lynn, Secret Tea Room, when I am too busy.

We work for free, we charge no one here. It's become the go to point for anyone wanting to know about supper clubs in the UK and we have also spent years building up the 'Supper clubs by location' tab. 

This site has been mentioned in The Guardian twice in recent weeks and will have several pages of my forthcoming book 'Supper clubs: recipes and notes from The Underground Restaurant' devoted ot it. This will further build interest in this site and the sector in general.

Of late I have been thinking about getting some subtle sponsorship of this site, to pay for improvements and moderation. 

I was approached by Sarah Belizaire Butler of Clarion Communications who is promoting Cordoniu. Cordoniu are spending considerable money on sponsoring the Olly Smith programme 'Secret Supper Clubs' on Channel 4. *

They wanted to sponsor this site and in return for run competitions, promote their product and have their badge on the banner. I was approaching this carefully, wanting to make sure for instance that if Cordoniu lost interest in supper clubs, I would continue to own the site. At the same time my gut instinct felt... uncomfortable; somehow I found Sarah's behaviour (on behalf of her brand) to be strangely pushy 'hurry hurry' but at the same time not exactly straightfoward. Suddenly after months of negotiation,  they withdrew all offers of sponsorship, at the same time asking if they could use extracts from my book (for free) on their site and link to my site (for free) in order to give the impression that Cordoniu are associated with us.

Yesterday I discovered one supper club on here was promoting their product directly through his menu with a link to Cordoniu's site. I asked this member if he'd been approached by Cordoniu directly, he said yes.

So basically Cordoniu is trying to advertise their product through this site but not paying me. They found all the supper clubs via this site.

I think that's pretty underhand and unfair behaviour. 

There are other issues:

1) People without personal and premises alcohol licenses are NOT allowed to give complimentary alcohol at their dinners. Yes, you read that right. I was contacted by licensing regarding this. There is plenty of case law against us. If you give a drink (especially if you advertise it) while charging for food, they will have deemed you to be charging for the alcohol, which is illegal. So Cordoniu are encouraging illegal activity. It's a very blurry line. Tastings are fine, but I imagine this is with the presence of a representative from the alcohol firm and that prices have in no way risen for the food.

2) The terms and conditions of being a member of this site request that you do not use this site to advertise. 

 

Lynn and I do this for free. We are still seeking sponsorship to improve the site. 

 

So... do you think people should be paid for their work?

 

 

msmarmitelover

 

 

Again, I don't think much of this programme, it's yet another fake set up for TV, pseudo supper club, run by conventional restaurants and cafes. Olly Smith is in no way connected with this movement either. 

So a fake programme sponsored by fake champagne.

 

[Dashwood House]

You do a wonderful job running this site for all of us for free,

shame sometimes people feel they need to abuse this !

[msmarmitelover]

Thanks Cafe Nouveau for your comment. Certainly I would be very very careful about any sponsor. I would only allow a product whose qualities I believed in. 

I have also been approached by companies who I could never in faith support or promote.

I certainly would never take the highest bid and in fact if I decide to go with a sponsor, I would put it to the supper club hosts to get feedback. The companies I'm presently talking to have great products that I actually use at my supper club anyway. 

:)

...calming down now...phew. Jamie's on telly...love his cooking. 

x

[Cafe Nouveau at Home]

Although I’m annoyed by what Cordoniu has done I’m not altogether surprised. But ultimately they have also damaged their own brand and reputation. From them being a relatively unknown entity, they are now being talked about very negatively by a lot of people and this is all down to the way they have behaved.

 

Sponsorship is a tricky one. When an event/concept/idea starts to grow, the management of it does as well and this means costs are incurred. What sponsorship can do is ensure that the organisers can cover their time and/or their outgoings without passing the cost onto the end user. But sponsorship always comes at a price and a sponsor will always want something in return.

 

In terms of choosing a sponsor this has to be Kerstin’s and Lynn’s decision as they set up and maintain this site for free which I am very grateful for as I get free publicity for my events without having to do much in return. And knowing a bit about them both I am convinced that they would seriously look at the pros and cons of the sponsor and not simply sign up the highest bidder.

 

As someone has previously commented what about getting supper clubs to pay a registration fee or an annual fee. Pricing it is the difficult one as it needs to be low enough to still entice supper club organisers to use the site but high enough to cover your costs.

 

Another option could be extending the admin of the site to other people but this again can fraught with difficulty.

 

Unfortunately it’s not an easy problem to solve.   

[msmarmitelover]

Thank you so much TA (very mysterious name).I am talking to other firms about sponsorship, firms I trust. And that money will be ploughed into the site. x

[TA]

While I'm not a supperclub, I do partake in the deliciousness of them. Good for you on bringing this underhanded behaviour to light. I think it's diabolical and seems to be a part of a trend of scam behaviour going on. Shame on Cordoiu/SarahBelizaire Butler.

You all do a brilliant job running this site & I hope you get some legitimate sponsorship to help keep it going.

[msmarmitelover]

Actually I think that's pretty clear from my post, just looked at it again.

[msmarmitelover]

Of  course supper clubs can put what they like on their own sites and blogs and twitter. But this supper club host directly advertised Cordoniu, with a link to the Cordoniu site, on this site.

[msmarmitelover]

Thanks for both your comments. I know that many supper club hosts do not earn very much money and therefore I am reluctant to charge them. Big companies such as Cordoniu do have money. If they had not pulled out, supper club hosts would still have received free Cava but a)via the site and b)with the warning that I gave Sarah Belizaire Butler about the licensing issues

What is the buzzword for all social media? What has value? AUTHENTICITY. And that's what this group possesses. Cordoniu and big companies have little credibility or authenticity, and they want a piece of this. For supper club hosts to advertise these big companies for the price of a bottle of dodgy fizz is undervaluing themselves, quite frankly.

If you do this part time, fine, if you have another job, fine, but this is my job, what I do. I think I'm pretty generous but yes I do have bills and a child to bring up.

Lynn literally spends hours every day keeping up this site. You know what, you can have the flashiest site in the world but if there is no interaction, no maintenance or moderation of the site then it's a dead site. 

 

 

[audreefletcher]

I don't have a problem with sponsorship of/advertising on this site - yes, it is right that you should be able to generate an income in return for all the effort you've put in.

But I think you need to make an explicit distinction between "supper clubs shouldn't use this site to advertise" and "supper clubs listed on this site shouldn't advertise (elsewhere)". I'm sure you mean the former, but it isn't entirely clear, and the latter would be unpopular and perhaps unreasonable.

[Joginder's Supperclub]

Without this site we wouldn't have got up and running so quickly, so I want to thank Kerstin for creating such a useful tool for us supperclub owners. It just goes to show that whilst we all support eachother with our suppers these big companies are always trying to get something for free. We would be happy to pay a fee for listing our events to help with the up keep of this great site. I don't think that would be too much to ask at all.

Keep up the good work fellow supperclubbers!

Saira x